Do you know the difference between a successful person and an unsuccessful person?  Success results from a mindset, a consistent habit pattern and a way of being.  Success in love, in finances, in health and recovery from illness, in business,  in athletic or artistic activities, or in any life endeavour requires skills that high level marketers have developed.  Inspired by an interview of a top internet marketer, Eben Pagan, by another high level marketer, Joe Polish, I realized that we are all, always, marketing in our lives – in love, in business and in everything else.  Some of us succeed.  Other fail.  What is the difference?  What does it take to succeed.

For me, the deeper secret about success and failure is that those who are successful do what works.  They are not attached to the results.  They give and share, what they have and know, freely without holding back and without expecting something in return.  They listen to the needs of the other person (customer, lover, friend, acquaintance, boss, employee, family member, organization, etc.).  They discover the other person’s perspective and find a way to offer what the other person perceives as valuable.  They learn about the other person’s pain, what is giving them anxiety and causing them to suffer, and they find a way to teach and encourage and convince the other person that they have what it takes to meet that person’s needs and make their pain go away. 

The unsuccessful person, on the other hand, does what he or she thinks “should” work and continues to do it without testing, or perhaps just gives up when it doesn’t work easily.  They do not take the time or make the effort to listen to what the other person claims they need.  The unsuccessful person offers what he or she “thinks” the other person “should” need or want.  The unsuccessful person feels entitled to receive (money, love, sex, happiness, recognition, respect, etc.) and is attached to receiving what they feel entitled to (becoming emotionally upset when not received).  The unsuccessful person “expects” the other person to just “know” how valuable (wonderful, loving, important, expensive, worthy of being loved) they or their products are without finding out what is perceived as valuable to the other person.

The unsuccessful person has no idea what causes the other person to suffer, to feel pain and anxiety, but attempts to persuade the other person to want and desire what he or she is offering.

The successful person is a value creator, helping others to feel seen, heard, acknowledged, appreciated and helped.  The unsuccessful person communicates from a place of self-interest, self-importance, self-concern.

Today I read a wonderful poem on this very topic by Ralph Waldo Emerson at http://askjohnandsue.wordpress.com/.

Success 

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

 To appreciate beauty,

 To find the best in others,

 To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,

A garden patch or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.

Listen to this powerful interview of Eben Pagan that inspired me to write this blog. http://gurublueprintblog.com/2010/06/06/joe-polish-interview/

Please comment below and let me know your thoughts about success and failure, what it takes to succeed and whether you believe that we are always marketing, whether we call it that or not.

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